Simonds D'Ewes

Sir Simonds D'Ewes, 1st Baronet (born December 18, 1602 in Milden , Suffolk , England , † April 18, 1650 ) was an English antiquarian and moralist , who mainly through his posthumously published work Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth became known.

Life

University degree, Member of the Long Parliament and victim of the Pride's Purge

D'Ewes studied after attending the Grammar School in Bury St Edmunds at St John's College of the University of Cambridge and was in 1621 to study law at the Bar Association of Middle Temple admitted. After graduation, he was admitted as 1623 Lawyer and began shortly thereafter with its collection of materials and antiques and the study of history. In 1626 he married Anne Clopton, the daughter of Sir William Clopton, who enabled him to work more extensively through his influence.

On December 6, 1626 D'Ewes was a Knight Bachelor for beaten knights and led then on the additional name Sir . As a staunch advocate of Puritanism and a member of the Moderate Party, he took an active role in the opposition to King Charles I of England and his plans to dissolve the Long Parliament in 1640 . He himself was a Member of Parliament for Sudbury and was bestowed on July 15, 1640 by King Charles I the hereditary title of Baronet , of Stowlangtoft Hall in the County of Suffolk. Nevertheless, after the beginning of the English Civil War he took a position against the King for Parliament and in 1643 was one of the supporters of the Solemn League and Covenant , an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and leaders of the English Parliament in 1643 .

In 1648 he was known as Pride's Purge victim to an event during the time of the Commonwealth of England , when troops under the command of Colonel Thomas Pride force in the British House of those removed from the Parliament that the top leadership of the army and the Independents not supported. After this forced resignation from parliament, he withdrew from political life and devoted himself to his literary work.

In his second marriage he was married to Elizabeth Willoughby and had their son Willoughby D'Ewes with her, who followed him as 2nd Baronet. This title expired in 1731 with the death of the last male descendant.

Literary work and antiquarian bookshop

As an antiquarian, D'Ewes put on an extensive collection of original documents on the history of England , although during his lifetime he only published a treatise entitled The Primitive Practice for Preserving Truth (1645) and a few speeches.

His best-known work Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth was only published posthumously in 1682. This extensive collection of old certificates and documents is now part of the Harleian Collection of the British Museum .

His diaries from 1621 to 1624 and 1643 to 1647 were not published, the latter diaries being a valuable collection of what happened in parliament and often the only records of incidents and speeches in parliament at that time. These diaries are partially encrypted or written in Latin .

Excerpts of his Autobiography and Correspondence from the manuscripts in the British Museum have been cited several times, for example in the appendix to the Historia vitae et regni Ricardi II (1729) by Thomas Hearne , Bibliotheca topographica Britannica (No. XV Volume VI, 1783), by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillips in The autobiography and correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, bart., During the reigns of James I. and Charles I. (1845) and in College Life in the Time of James I (1851). Large parts of his diaries were also used by JL Sanford in his Studies of the Great Rebellion .

Web links

• Simonds d'Ewes in the nndb (English)
• The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (British History Online)

predecessor	title	successor
New title created	Baronet, of Stowlangtoft Hall 1641-1650	Willoughby D'Ewes